


The Science of Living

by ClutchHedonist



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Anal Sex, Dirty Talk, Dom/sub Undertones, M/M, Multi, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, clutch is writing weird dynamics as usual, fitzjames is a needy mess, francis crozier is daddy as fuck, service top thomas jopson, they do not call it that oops my kinks are showing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:42:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24951781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClutchHedonist/pseuds/ClutchHedonist
Summary: There is a simplicity in the act of service, a quiet sense of purpose that allows for clear-headedness in an otherwise cluttered mind. Jopson knows it well, can measure out his heartbeat by the rhythm of his daily regimen. Shaving, tailoring, preparing meals. Tending to the needs of the Captain, often before the Captain himself becomes aware of them.It is this duty that finds him in the pantry, a damp dish towel in one hand and Captain Fitzjames’s chin in the other.
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames, Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames/Thomas Jopson
Comments: 25
Kudos: 109





	The Science of Living

There is a simplicity in the act of service, a quiet sense of purpose that allows for clear-headedness in an otherwise cluttered mind. Jopson knows it well, can measure out his heartbeat by the rhythm of his daily regimen. Shaving, tailoring, preparing meals. Tending to the needs of the Captain, often before the Captain himself becomes aware of them. 

It is this duty that finds him in the pantry, a damp dish towel in one hand and Captain Fitzjames’s chin in the other. It is true that, were Fitzjames on his own ship, seeing to his needs would technically fall to Mister Hoar. But as Fitzjames pants for breath, hair clinging to his temples, Jopson finds himself unable to imagine Edmund possessing the discretion necessary to preserve the privacy of either of their Captains.

“To the left a bit, sir, if you would.” He murmurs gently.

Fitzjames’s head lolls tiredly to the side, and Jopson daubs at the corner of his wrecked, stung mouth, cleans away the hint of indiscretion that still clings to his bottom lip. Fitzjames hisses through his teeth, but offers little else by way of objection. Jopson stills his hands.

“Forgive me, sir. I shall strive to be more gentle.”

“You would certainly be the only one.” Fitzjames snorts.

“Ah.” Jopson purses his lips, “I’m certain the Captain is-”

Fitzjames rolls his eyes, “Greedy, Jopson. Boorish. Selfish. Choose what words you will.”

Jopson merely offers a conciliatory smile. The pantry itself will no doubt require squaring away, but prioritizing tasks according to Crozier’s preferences has become second nature, and so he instead extends a hand to Fitzjames, whose knees are still shaking as he stumbles up from the deck. 

“Thank you, Jopson.” He grunts.

“Not at all, sir.” Jopson soothes. His hands flutter to Fitzjames’s uniform, refastening buttons, smoothing away wrinkles, burying the evidence of his rough treatment. Beneath his palms, Fitzjames straightens, takes a narrow breath through his nose and sets his jaw. The picture of a man unbuggered. 

It’s late enough that the walk between the pantry and Jopson’s cabin is a blessedly quiet one. James casts a dark glance towards the Captain’s stateroom as they pass by, which Jopson kindly pretends to entirely miss. Once they’re outside his own lodgings, he surveys the passageway in both directions, then draws back the curtain and holds it for Fitzjames.

All of the air drains from James as soon as it flutters shut behind them. His shoulders droop, and weariness creeps into the line of his spine. He licks across his bottom lip, cringes at the already developing sting he finds there. No doubt they’ll be chapped in the morning. Jopson barely has time to free him from his uniform before James is melting against him. Managing to bully him into the cramped bed, Jopson climbs in behind him. He tucks his nose against the nape of James’s neck.

“Intolerable man.” James murmurs bleakly.

Jopson hums thoughtfully, neither assent nor dissent. Then, he works one arm around James’s slender waist to anchor his palm over his heart, dropping a handful of slow kisses into the back of one tight shoulder. Slowly, James begins to unspool against him. In the morning, he’ll awaken before the dawn, guide him back into his uniform and out onto the deck before anyone is the wiser. But now, here, he nuzzles into the hollow of his long neck.

“Anything you need, sir?” He purrs.

James sighs, “A miracle, perhaps. Barring that, no, Jopson. Again, my thanks.”

“Of course, sir.”

\---

The first time he had discovered them, his own lack of perception had startled him far more than the act itself. There was no doubt, given the way that Fitzjames arched eagerly into Crozier’s punishing thrusts, that this was hardly a singular occurrence. How, then, had he not known? How had he overlooked this opportunity to avail himself to the Captain?

He had seen, he realized later, Fitzjames leaving the cabin more than once. Jopson had accounted his pale, sour expressions to arguments between the two, had sighed to himself and strategized endlessly about how to best mitigate their bouts of temper. But this- he could assist with this. To Jopson’s great contentment, Captain Crozier had been relieved at the mere suggestion.

And so, for the last three months, the duty of attending to whatever melancholies might plague Fitzjames after their liaisons had fallen to Jopson. He’s a simpler man to read than Crozier, his needs infinitely more plain. Quiet nothings whispered over a shared pillow. A warm body to fall asleep against. A gentle hand to smooth the dishevelled lock of hair away from his brow. And on the most wistful nights, a snifter of brandy to dull the ache.

Fitzjames, in turn, rarely regards him when the morning comes. He allows himself to be dressed and styled, aloof save for the odd desultory withering remark about his fellow Captain’s character. Jopson nods here and again, smiles in the right places, and checks the passageway before watching him go. 

And for this, Jopson finds himself no greater or lesser. But when he reports to the stateroom to wake the Captain, there is always a moment of silent recognition, of tangible, grateful awareness that passes directly from Crozier and into his breast, sets him alight with pride and purpose. Were he able to feed himself only on this, the certainty of a job well done, it would surely be enough. 

\---

Jopson feels keenly the effect of the pact that Crozier makes with the four of them that night in the wardroom, perhaps even before Fitzjames has the chance to. His mother, seizing and trembling. Delirious, the rhythm of her pulse an orchestra missing its conductor. He searches Crozier’s face, forces himself to imagine the lines of it contorted, to foresee his Captain’s skin clammy and sweating before the world can engrave the true image of it into his mind. To deaden himself to it before it can sweep him from his moorings. 

It will be weeks, minutes and hours that soldier onward as if through sucking mud. Jopson studies Fitzjames’s face by the light of the lantern. The tight pinch of his lips. The skin drawn over his cheekbones. Returns his gaze to Crozier, whose eyes flick between him and Fitzjames. Jopson sets tight his jaw. Whatever it takes. Anything.

The first agonies are theirs and theirs alone. The spasms. The vomiting. Doctor MacDonald offers his counsel, but it is Jopson who stands as a sentinel, rarely eating, sleeping even less. From time to time, he catches the haughty timbre of Fitzjames’s voice in the passageway, filtering down through the overhead, but this - this isn’t for James. James, who could no more withstand an ungenerous glance than a paroxysm of misery. This is his. His to behold. His to tend to. His purpose, fulfilled. A clear course forward, a level head to pursue it.

Crozier speaks plain to him, in the grip of it. Stories, sometimes, or more often simply to put a name to his anguish. Every earnest word a pearl that Jopson strings onto the growing rosary of their confidence.

“James.” He finally slurs after a full week beset by hallucinations, “He’s...he’s not been here? He hasn’t seen?”

“No, sir.” Jopson assures him as he presses a fresh cold compress to his forehead.

Crozier grunts his thanks and twists onto his side. The question that follows waits another handful of days, stuck somewhere behind his ribs, gestating until it’s too large to be kept inside any longer. When it does come, it’s at half four, when only they and the watch remain awake.

“Has he asked about me?” He groans.

Jopson schools his features into the curiosity he imagines that the Captain expects, “Who, sir?” Crozier merely snorts in reply, and Jopson can’t help but smile, “...Captain Fitzjames?”

“ ‘M his superior officer.” Crozier insists.

“He has, sir.” Jopson offers, “Twice today, in fact.”

Crozier struggles to pull himself upright. Jopson is beside him in an instant, tucking a pillow behind the small of his back. Crozier steadies himself, then looks to him.

“What’d he say?”

“He inquired after your health, sir.” Jopson replies, “I told him that it has been showing considerable improvement.”

Crozier arcs one brow, “Considerable improvement, eh?”

“Yes, sir. He seemed contented by the idea.”

“Oh, I doubt that.” Crozier huffs.

“Sir?”

Crozier slumps back against the pillow, “Contentment never lasts James more than an hour or so.”

Jopson can feel a hint of color rise in his cheeks, “Ah. I see, sir.”

“No doubt he’s been a misery to every man on deck for a fortnight.” Crozier continues.

“I cannot speak as to his conduct with the men.” Jopson admits, “Having not recently had cause to venture above.”

Francis blinks, “You’ve not-?”

“No, sir.” Jopson says.

A flicker of a frown plays across Crozier’s mouth, “You shouldn’t be forced to stay here with the likes of me.”

“I’m hardly being forced, sir.” Jopson tells him, “It’s my duty -and my honor- to serve as your hands during your convalescence.” 

Crozier harrumphs. Then, as Jopson watches, his furrowed brow lifts as consideration creeps across his face, “...Suppose you might do us both a good turn, serving as more.”

\---

Francis, dressed for the first time in more than simply his shirtsleeves since his withdrawal from the weather decks, slouches back in his wardroom chair. His hands card through Fitzjames’s hair as James clings to his knees. The long, slender arc of his back is bowed between Crozier’s lap, where he rests his cheek, and Jopson’s hips, where he bucks himself back to be impaled in steady rhythm. 

“Oh,  _ Francis. _ ” He pants into one of Crozier’s muscular thighs.

“Like that, do you?” Francis grins, smearing the pad of his thumb over James’s bottom lip, “Been hungry for me?”

“Starved.” James groans. One long hand comes up to encircle Crozier’s wrist, overturning it to press eager kisses into his palm like prayers.

Jopson carefully steadies his breath. The inside of Fitzjames is tight, clutches him desperately in a way he can’t recall any of his own amorous memories matching. And the  _ noises  _ he makes-

“Harder.” Crozier orders, “Make him feel it.”

Jopson’s obedient hips snap forward, quick enough to strike down a serpent. James drops his face to muffle a yelp into Francis’s knee.

“Christ.” He gasps, “Francis,  _ yes. _ ”

Jopson’s gaze flicks up to Crozier’s face. His lips are pursed, the faintest hint of a smirk, as he cups James’s chin to tilt his head back. James watches him, eyes hooded, chest heaving.

“That’s what you need, is it?” Francis croons, “To be used like a two-bob doxy?”

“Anything.” James heaves, “Anything at all, damn you, just as long as you  _ have me _ .”

“Press down, just there.” Crozier gestures minutely towards the small of James’s back.

Jopson spares a hand to obey. James’s hips cant back, and on the next thrust, he keens, open-mouthed, as Jopson’s cock strikes the hot knot of pleasure within him. Jopson feels the eager flutter of his body around him and chokes back a groan. (It’s hardly his place to interrupt the Captains, after all.)

“Oh, I’ve missed this.” James sighs, knees shuddering against the boards, skin thrumming.

Francis soothes a weathered knuckle over the high arch of his cheekbone. James’s lips quest after his skin, and when he finds it, he draws the digit into his mouth. In profile, Jopson can see his cheeks hollow around it.

“ _ Fuck _ .” Francis hisses, “The mouth on you.”

“All yours, too, to be sure.” James murmurs, drawing back to graze the pad of Francis’s fingertip with his teeth, “Whatever you like.”

Francis spares him a rakish grin, “And what if what I want is to spend in your pretty little cunt until you can’t stand, mm?”

James drags in a gasp, “Fuck’s  _ sake,  _ Francis, my- my c-” He trails off, face flushed red.

And there it is again, that arch of one ginger brow, delighted and cocksure, “After all, isn’t that what you make it for me, James? A fine cunt for my cock.”

Jopson draws a narrow breath through his nose. His Adam's apple bobs in his throat as he swallows, once, then again. His knuckles have gone white. Beneath him, James shakes in earnest.

“You’ll drive me mad, you monster.” He shivers out against Francis’s wrist. 

Both arms unfurl from Francis’s knees, and he stretches them helplessly towards him. Crozier wastes no time in gathering the top half of him up into his arms. Jopson refuses to allow the motion to disrupt the rhythm of their hips, shifts closer until he’s nearly against Crozier’s knees, James’s lithe bodies crushed up between them. James whimpers aloud as he nuzzles his jaw into Francis’s chest.

“Do it, then.” He begs, “Take me, claim me, fill my- fill my  _ cunt  _ as you like, Francis. I cannot bear to be without it.”

Crozier nearly grins, “Look at you, James. You’ll say anything, won’t you, with my cock inside you?”

Jopson gasps, pulse stumbling, as he keeps himself from spilling by a hair’s breadth. This body, no longer his own. An extension of the Captain’s instead. An inconceivable elevation. His,  _ his.  _

“F-Francis,  _ please. _ ” James implores, “I can’t wait any longer. Touch me.”

Crozier needs only glance to Jopson and then his hand is wrapped around Fitzjames’s straining cock. It’s already dripping through his fingers. James sobs and writhes against Crozier’s stomach.

“Yes, Francis, God above,  _ fuck- _ ” And then he’s undone, hands becoming claws in the back of Crozier’s shirt.

Jopson quakes with need and lifts his eyes up to the Captain. Crozier offers him a sliver of a smile, a benediction, a lifeline, and Jopson spends himself, pulse after wrenching pulse, into Fitzjames. James surges up in his grip to crush his mouth to Francis’s. When they finally pull apart, Jopson can hear them panting against one another’s lips.

“Francis.” James breathes.

Crozier watches him for a long moment. Then, he brushes a lock of hair from his forehead with his thumb, “...Jopson.”

“Sir?” Jopson gasps, winded. 

“That’ll be all.”

“Yes, sir.”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for taking this filthy ride with me on the HMS Weird Dynamics. visit me at @clutchhedonist on tumblr for more of my screaming about Sad Cold Boys.


End file.
